How to Survive Law School (and probably most other things)

If you are going to Law School this fall, congratulations. Basically everyone is really nice to each other until November, and then things get weird because its hard to keep up a social facade under the pressure of your first round of finals. So when things get weird, just remember that its normal. For example, we had people breaking leases and moving out of apartments/away from roommates in November.

Don’t sleep with your classmates. Don’t date your classmates until second semester, that way you don’t have nasty personality surprises. Do not date your married classmates (it happens).

Law school is a strange social experiment. Throw a ton of type A personalities, overachievers, and insecure people together, place them under a lot of stress and see what happens. People get nasty to each other with very little provocation. I had someone text me at 3 AM (a 30 something adult male, btw) that “no one at school likes you”. This is because he decided my twitter account was about him. Which is just really strange.

The best thing you can do for yourself is to work hard and be nice. It will be hard to be nice all the time (trust me, I’m pretty bad at it). But do your best. Keep your head down, don’t let silly people distract you from your work. You’ll come out of law school with a small group of very close friends, and you probably won’t see the majority of your classmates after graduation.